Paxton Mills 1948-2001
Tributes and Testaments
"Paxton Mills was one of us ... "
(e-mail yours to larryshannon@radiodailynews.com)

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A message to Paxton's friends from his son, Matthew
Thank you to all the fans, friends and former co-workers who've contributed to this site in remembrance of my father, Paxton Mills.  Your words are incredibly touching and I will certainly share them with the rest of my family. Until his passing, I never fully understood the impact Paxton made in the radio industry and in the lives of his daily listeners.  He was a true pioneer and an exceptional wit. A few years ago, he told me that beings in distant galaxies got to listen to him every day because the radio waves carried his voice beyond our atmosphere and in to outer space.  I like to think that interstellar radio lovers are all tuned in to KPAX (sorry, couldn't resist) and loving every minute of it. I live in New York now, where I work as a writer/producer in television, film, print and internet media.  If any of you are ever in the Big Apple, please feel free to call me up - (917) 744 0138 - and we'll go raise a glass to Paxton Mills - father, friend and radio man. All the best, Matthew Mills 

I was clicking around and ran across your article about Paxton Mills. I met him in 1975…in Cleveland…where I was attending the WIXY School Of Broadcast Technique. He was one of the WIXY 1260 Good Guys…back when guys on the radio were true “personalities”. WIXY had an all glass control room where you could see what was going on inside from the lobby…and speakers that allowed you to listen. I used to sit there and watch and listen to him…he was bigger than life…he’s what I wanted to be. Man…what a voice! He was married at the time to a woman named Jan…who also worked for the station. It’s sad to hear that he died alone. I’ve been in radio now longer than I care to mention…I’ve never achieved his level of performance…and probably never will…but man…what a role model!

I miss him too!

Ed Bostic | WGSY - Sunny 100

Funeral services for Paxton Mills were held Monday, July 2, 2001, at Mountain View Methodist Church, 355 Ponca Place, Boulder, Colorado 80303. (303) 494-5025 ... The Denver Post carried this story about the funeral (click)

He was a good friend and also the only person I have ever known personally that could talk just like Jimmy Stewart, the movie star,I use to beg him when we would take our wives out to dinner in Cleveland to order in Jimmy's voice and he would. I think about it now and laugh out loud. He was a talented person and hell of a spleefer. So don't be sad just think of something he did to make you laugh out loud and I think that would please him dearly. We had a real good time working together at KLIF and when I was back in Denver working for Capitol we got to hang out a few times. Gonna burn one for my friend.  Pax and I go way back. We both are from Texas radio and worked together in Dallas at KLIF and also WIXY in Cleveland, Ohio. I was shocked when our friend Rick Ericson called from Dallas and told me the sad news. Not only did we all love Paxton, I had great respect for his talent. He was funny as hell and the ladies loved him.I will also say that Pax loved Colorado with an extreme passion. And after living there for 12 years myself, I can understand. After a while it just gets in your blood. I now live on Lake Lanier in northeast Georgia and am an avid bass fisherman and am very happy. However even though I never put a ski on in my life. I often think of the Rockies. I still root for the teams and everything. And I betcha Paxton does too. I didn't make it to the funeral and really wasn't sure when it was, but I gotta admit, that is not how I want to remember him. It must be him smiling and laughing, cause he did that real well. I love ole" Paxton and everyone who knew him for more than five minutes did too.. I"ll be there with you someday old buddy

Randy Robins

Paxton Mills was born with the dominant radio gene.  In high school at W. T. White in Dallas in the 60's, he was always the emcee at pep rallies and special functions. He was The Voice.  He and I weren't close friends, but the school being new and comparatively small, everyone knew everyone else so we knew each other. There was a running joke about Paxton used by almost all the students. Instead of just saying his name, students would say "The Golden Throated Voice of Paxton Mills" in a rich announcer baritone that was supposed to imitate Paxton, but never did.  The phrase became a standard substitute for his name. We knew then that he was headed for big time radio. We just didn't know when or where.  Imagine how impressed we were when he made it onto KLIF about the time he turned 19 or 20 years old.  If Roger Staubach had attended W. T. White and then started for the Dallas Cowboys at age 19, we couldn't have been more astounded.  One of own on KLIF.  Paxton Mills was on the same airwaves as Jimmy Rabbit. It was truly incredible. I was sorry to learn of Paxton Mill's death, but impressed by the outpouring of love and respect he received from so many legendary radio personalities (our heroes!).  As you can tell, I am not a radio person, but like many others who grew up in the 60's listening to Top 40 Radio was right up there with water, food, shelter, and clothing.  Knowing someone who was on the other side of the mike was simply incredible.  Paxton was the one.  He was a genuine talent who knew early in life what he wanted to do, then pursued it with a passion.  He was fortunate to be so blessed and so are we for having known him. Jeff Harris  jbharris@fuse.net

I hired him to do Mornings at KIMN in 1981 and brought him back to the mountains he loved so dearly.  
He was a great talent, and had one of the sweetest hearts of anyone I've worked with over the years.  
Our business will miss his talent.

Doug Erickson  EMCPRES@compuserve.com 
Erickson Media Consultants
KIMN PD 1981-86

I worked with Paxton in 1974 at WIXY in CLEVELAND. I had just come to the station from WHBQ in MEMPHIS. The processing on WIXY sounded pretty bad.  Paxton did afternoons and I did nights at the ripe young age of 19. Of course, I knew everything about everything. I was telling Paxton one day how HOT the processing was on WHBQ. He got excited and sort of encouraged me to do something bold so I decided to go out to the transmitter sight and "tweak" the processing myself. Paxton loved it but the chief engineer had a fit. In fact, he had more than a fit and started after me physically one day at the station. Paxton came to my rescue and stood between me and the engineer thus saving my little 19 year old know it all butt from sure destruction. Thanks for being my big brother Paxton. Wish I could have been there for you.

Tom Kent  
TKTOMKENT@aol.com 

I was just a fan. But what a fan. Paxton Mills was one of the voices of my youth, delivering a very hip, well-informed, and sometimes extremely whack program from the Mighty Eleven-Ninety. I always got the impression Rabbit and Mills had already answered Hendrix' question "Are You Experienced" even though they were doing Top 40. They were hipper than they had to be. My first semester of college, I too, had answered Hendrix, and dropped out after tuning in and turning on. By the time the second semester came around in January 1970, a buddy and I hooked up in El Paso, where I'd gone to school, and took his VW Beetle on a great swing across the American west. We headed up I 25 through New Mexico and into Colorado first, a long enough haul to wonder to myself more than once, what I had done. Somewhere close to Denver, I finally found some good radio and after awhile I locked onto one AM channel after hearing the familiar voice of Paxton Mills, spewing banter that was even more whacked out than his BS on KLIF. We stayed with him as long as we could pick up the frequency. Somewhere west of Denver, as we were climbing into the Rockies, we fired one up, just as he introduced "Oh Well" by Fleetwood Mac--the LONG version, on AM radio, no less. It was a transcendental experience that has stuck with me to this very day, climbing high literally, fueled by music that took me higher and the deejay who sounded even higher than all of us.  When we got to San Francisco, KSAN-FM sounded bland by comparison.  A year and a half later, after wandering around, doing school in Minnesota, bumming around Europe, and taking some broadcasting courses back at UT-El Paso again, and pulling a shift at a campus station beamed to dorms, I got a gig for a $1.60 an hour at KFAD-FM in Arlington, between Dallas and Fort Worth, working from a library of more than 1,000 records with the instructions from PD Phil Cook to be sure to play advertisements when they were scheduled, and "good music" in between. I must have played "Oh Well", the long version, more than 50 times over the next six months. It was the best job I ever had. I like to think Paxton Mills had more than a little to do with that.

Joe Nick Patoski joenickp@yahoo.com
Senior Editor, Texas Monthly magazine

I never got to work with Paxton, but he was one of the many KLIF jocks that inspired me along with Mike O'Shea, Dave Ambrose, Charlie Van Dyke, Jim Tabor, Mike Seldon and others in the "Beatles Generation." I came along later and guess I would be considered part of the "Classic Beatles Generation." I used to listen to Pax do his show almost every day. And at the time, tuned around from KLIF to KFJZ to KXOL to hear the other jocks. Occasionally I'd switch to the FM band and hear the "heavy music" on KNUS and KFAD and the different style of the jocks. I really got my biggest boost when Jim Tabor let me come into the studio and watch him do his show. Then I was hooked and knew I was going to become part of this business. It's been 30 years now. I worked at all the big ones. KLIF, KNUS, Q102, KZEW and the list goes on and on...and all right here in Dallas/Fort Worth...nowhere else. When I got into the business, I never thought I'd be friends with and work with some of the greats I used to listen to and look up to. I hate that it took something like the shock of Paxton's death to make me realize...time is running out for all of us. So before it's too late I want to say "thanks" to all of you who influenced me and those who became my friends over the  years...like Larry Shannon, Bob Morrison, and Michael Spears. To Jim, Mike and Pax...a "big thanks." May you all rest in peace.

Randy Coffey    rlcoffey@cbs.com 

I didn't know Paxton like so many others did. I knew of him, listened to him and liked him. I had a chance to meet him in Chicago at a radio convention in the early 80's. Nice guy very easy to talk to and didn't mind my sitting down with him and asking dumb questions. Seems like so many leaving us these days. Memories and tapes live on. Thanks Charlie, I didn't know Paxton means "Peace" but it seems to fit him and like you I know he has it now.

So, I want to share something different as my memory of Pax. At KLIF, he and I were both single and "unconnected." The weekend approached and neither of us had plans. We agreed that we would both "work the phones" and find something to do by Friday. And whatever we found, she had to have a girl friend so we would "double." Well, I "hit the jackpot." Two airline reservation ladies who were room mates..and they gave great "phone." OK..so Pax and I pick up the pizza and drive to the apartment of the ladies. It turns out that one was double the size of the other (and the first one was plenty healthy. Double wide comes to mind.) Well, I suggested that we couldn't stay because of an unexpected "appearance" we had to make. Pax said we could stay for pizza. OK. I went to the kitchen to help healthy honey #1 warm the pizza. Through the door, I hear the sounds of kissing in the other room. I walk in to find Pax huggin' up bigger Bertha #2. I was stunned. We ate the pizza. Pax kept talking. Finally, I got him out of the door. I kicked his rear going to the car. "Why did you make us stay there so long?" His answer was, "Well, they invited us...they deserve respect...and they deserve a little affection." "What?!?," I said. "Hey, man," he said, "I'm not gonna see them again...but I want them to think of themselves as lovely ladies. There's no harm in helping someone feel good about themself."

Hi Larry.  Like many others I was stunned to hear the news. Its so unexpected. So stark. So unreal. So impossible. Yet, all of us from the "good ole KLIF" days are now in our fifties, and we are seeing or hearing of friends dropping from disease or accidents so unthinkable in our "bullet-proof" days. Bill Stewart, Jim Taber, Gordon McLendon himself. Mike Selden, now Paxton Mills. How sobering. I offer my deepest condolences to Paxton's family, friends and loved ones. Reading the news accounts of his home voice mail eerily suggested that he was reaching out. I hope in his final moments his reach was successful in some way. Paxton and I were very close in the "KLIF days", but unfortunately we had little connection for many years. Life takes us in different directions and shame on both of us for not making the time. How many remember Paxton at KVIL in 1967, using the name "David Mills"? That was when Hal Tunis <?> owned the station and all the jocks were named "David" because they were "Giant Killers" (KLIF). Shortly after that Paxton came over to our side, and I remember him mostly doing weekends and vacation relief in his early days at KLIF. At that time Ken Dowe (and Granny) were doing mornings, Dave Ambrose and I were dividing up midday, Charlie Van Dyke afternoons, Jimmy Rabbitt and Hal Martin (Mike Spears) did nights and Don Robertson was on overnights. We shuttled and mixed and matched airshifts for most of that era (Jim Taber, Mike Selden, Cuzzin' Lennie, The Coyote, Chuck Murphy, Rod Roddy, Dickie Heatherton, John London and others joined us in a virtual parade of radio's top talent in the late sixties and early seventies). And those incredible news people: Brad Messer, Richard Mock, Ron McAlister, Bruce Hughes, Ted Agnew, Bob Morrison and others). What a glorious time to be, as you put it, "A Beatles Era jock", on one of America's truly legendary stations. Though the circumstances are tragic, still it was good reading comments from Bob Morrison, Jimmy Rabbit, Chuck Murphy and others recalling happier days with Paxton. Thanks for this forum. May our buddy truly rest in peace.

I really don't know how to put this,  but I'll try.  There should be a place where we all can go when the time to go has come.  A place where we will not have to die alone.  If I had known that Paxton was in the situation he was in,  I would have done everything I could to be with him in that moment.  To be a comfort to him.  I only met Paxton three or four times,  but he was always very nice.  I have lost a friend as many of you have.  It would be something to have our old radio friends around us when the big moment comes to say things like:  "Hey,  remember when we did this,  and the competition was blown away."  Or,  "I beat out so-and-so in women 24 +."  Or,  "Did you hear,  Jimmy,  Ken,  Mark,  Art,  Larry,  Bob, or even Paxton,  got a job at KBIG in Big Market,  USA,  for ump-teen thousand dollars a year?  Man,  I hope that happens to me!"  Or to simply say,  "Fare thee well,  you will never be forgotten."  Those last words are the words I'm thinking now about Paxton Mills.

Dave Tucker dvtckr2001@aol.com

Larry, I've been in a real "funk" since I heard about Paxton yesterday! We were friends off and on over the years, but we never got to work together again, except when I would return to Dallas for the "KLIF" reunions in the 70's. He came out to L.A. a couple of times, when I was working at KROQ with Steve Lundy, Jim Woods and Jim Tabor, but Paxton had already discovered Colorado, and really didn't want to work in L.A. We ran together for a while when I was in Aspen, and he was in Denver, mostly he came to the mountains, because I hated Denver. We nearly worked together a couple of times, including about ten years ago when he called me in Texas, just after I had started back to College, to offer me a job in Avon (Vail) programming to all of the resort cities in Colorado, (including Aspen/Snowmass, where I spent 10 years as Operations Director, Morning Man at KSNO) via satellite. I was a graduate of the "Satellite Music Network" School of the 80's, and he wanted me to help him program, and do afternoon drive to his morning drive. I was considering it, when he called back to tell me that I should turn the job down because I was being set up by someone, who remembered me from the old days, and that I wouldn't last six months! The old "hired out of the market" game! I stayed on in Texas, even though I really missed Colorado, and didn't get to return here until seven years later. Paxton didn't last long either, he returned to Denver, and I haven't heard from him but a couple of times since then! I always meant to go and visit him in "the city", but I still hate Denver, and well, you know the rest! I think the fact that he was in Aspen may have meant that we were going to get a chance to work together again, but at this time it's only speculation. The sale of KSNO and "the Zephr" are pending this month, and I have a feeling we were both talking to the same people about jobs, and a chance to do some real radio again! I don't know why I wrote this, and don't really think I've said anything, except exactly what you said:  ("I've learned from Paxton's leaving us, a lesson. From now on, I'll try not to put off a day, again, the opportunity to write a note, send an e-mail or make a phone call to a friend in radio - especially ones  I haven't seen or talked to in some time) .... Amen! Thanks for sending me your "kind words" about the business that I still love so much, and a name I'll never forget, somehow I feel a little better now! Paxton's got a good job at a "real" radio station now, working with the best! You know what they say about "a hell of a band" in heaven, well, you can just imagine what the radio stations sound like! We already know what they sound like in the other market, since we hear that kind of programming everyday since "de-regulation"!

Your friend, Jimmy Rabbitt (rabbitt@gj.net)

I'm so blown away to hear about Pax ... He and I worked together at the "old" KVIL, and then at KLIF ... I talked to him last about 2 years ago when he came through town, but couldn't get to the airport in time to have a beer with him ... Life is strange to say the least ... Makes you appreciate what you have ...

Chuck Murphy  (Chuck@dreamgiftmedia.com)

Larry, Your tribute to Paxton Mills moved me. I had to fight back several lumps in the throat as I read it. I never met Paxton, nor did I ever talk to him, but certainly new who he was and what he did in radio in the D/FW area. He was one of many folks I had on my "need to contact" list because he was once at KXOL as well. The words from Dion's song plays through my head ".......I just looked around and he's gone."

John Lewis Puff (johnlp@aol.com)

Your tribute to Paxton was very touching. I'm sure he is enjoying it now in heaven.

Chuck Dunaway (kdunaway@worldnet.att.net)

If memory serves me correctly, Paxton was a jock at KXOL ...  in Ft Worth in mid 70s...sad to die so young.

 Ripp (RippChord@aol.com)

paxton worked for me at kmji.    he had done the am show for years, was fired
(before i became pd) for one reason or another.   i found him unemployed and
hired him back as a weekender to see if he could fit back in. sadly, there
was a shake-up not long after and the owner cleaned house.       

Bruce Buchanan (aka jim edwards), kvil, kfjz, kxol, kxyz, kono, woai (BBFIP@aol.com)

I didn't know Paxton. But I knew of his work. He was great on the radio. This is so sad. My heart goes out to his family, and the whole air staff at KOOL

Jay Marvin
ex KHOW Now WLS Chicago
jaymarvin890@yahoo.com

Just like the older soldiers of the other greatest generation who come together to say goodbye to their uniformed comrades, we don't really need words. We share the many great memories and battle badges, and the honor of having been a member of the battalions who were the Beatles generation jocks. Our best days and nights are not behind us. As we march together in silent steps toward the final days, our drum beat cadence is that of the Beatles generation. It is the metronome beat heard coming from the weathered, yellowed Western Union clock that'll once again take us to the top of the hour - and beyond - one small click at a time ...

Larry Shannon (larryshannon@radiodailynews.com)